In simple terms, India’s stance is “climate change? Ain’t my problem!”.

It is our problem!

But, the fact remains that climate change is eminently “our problem”.  Here are some reasons why it is:

1. The issue of poverty is  linked with subsistence farming and rural communities. 68% of land under cultivation in India is rain fed.  There is some evidence to so support the claim that climate change is making monsoons more erratic and is increasing the severity extreme events. 
2. What is the effect of climate change on the gangetic plain that is home to some 500 million people? The Himalayan glaciers that feed the mighty rivers are retreating at the rate of 10-15 meters a year, the effect of which could be massive flooding followed by drought events.
3. In general, agricultural production in India of rice and wheat is projected to drop between a massive 40% to 52% if temperatures were to rise by 2.5  to 4.9 degrees centigrade.
4. In particular, rice is very vulnerable to climate change. Rice is a very important staple crop in India.  It is estimated the rice production will fall 10% for every degree rise in temperature. 
5. Sea level rise is another climate change induced menace that India can ill afford. Apart from ecological destruction of important natural resources such as sundarbans, it can disrupt coastal economies by flooding, damages by extreme events and intrusion of saltwater in freshwater and groundwater resources. 
6. Sea water acidification and general temperature increase puts stress on marine ecosystems causing events such as coral bleaching. India should be concerned about the sustainability of the fisheries resources that it depends on.

These are big problems that will affect us no matter who puts up more carbon dioxide in atmosphere.  We share the planet with all the people whose unsustainable lives have “caused the problem” and we aren’t “helping” even if we keep well below the global per-capita average!

There is an upside, an opportunity.

A saner position for India is to acknowledge this global problem and demand that the developed world help us cope.

If we are going to move to  a carbon neutral economy sooner or later,  does huge investments in carbon tainted infrastructure make sense?

Let us look at one sector responsible for carbon emissions – power sector.  There are several things in this sector that are unique to India.  Our losses in transmission and distribution, for example, stood at 33% in 2005 , in other words we have a very inefficient grid. We also have a huge power theft problem. I guess this is partly motivated by our ethic that stealing from government is okay. Moreover, considerable section of our country still remains off-grid.

On the flip side, India as also very well endowed with natural energy resources such as sunlight and wind. We receive about 5,000 trillion kWh/year in solar energy. All these make up for a case that creatively funded (with some subsidies from developed countries), community run (because, while stealing from government is okay in our culture, stealing from our neighbors is most certainly not), off grid electricity generation near the place of consumption could solve multiple problems by creating sustainable (both economically and ecologically) energy infrastructure and eliminating inefficiency of  centralized grid.

India also has huge potential in terms of carbon sequestration, for example, using the Terra Preta or Biochar method. This method involves converting biomass that is agricultural byproduct into charcoal and using it to fertilize soil, thereby also achieving sequestration of carbon. This could potential be paid for by some sort of carbon trading scheme, providing triple benefits to farmers involved – provide an additional source of income, increase soil fertility and also reduce global warming!

With regards to our policy, we could act like a stubborn child and refuse to move ahead. We could demand for our share of “right to pollute” on a per-capita basis and slam the west for ruining the world before we could. The saner option, however, remains that we recognize the need to change and do it in a way that is both politically savvy and economically advantageous for us in the long run, which inevitably involves keeping our growth sustainable ecologically.